Your previous post did not answer this question.
But has that case ever actually been made, even once? Or are you just using your imagination?
See, thing is, if you could point to something substantial that DeLay was doing for the downtrodden, it would offer support for your conjecture about his motives, that he was only thinking about effective remedies. Otherwise, his turning his back on people in need and deserving of justice, for the sake of lobbyists and tycoons, he offers us a primo facist case for scummitude.
When did he offer that explanation, by the way, having a hard time finding a reference to it. Figured that would be the time and place where he would talk about all the great things he was doing for the downtrodden.
Advise.
But in our own determination of whether someone is factually innocent or not, we don’t really have to have them confess to us, our personal “feeling” is enough. But nonetheless, here is a wiki article that cites Mr. Delay that they must pay and hire his approved lobbyists and contribute to Republicans only and then access would not be cut off. If that kind of testimony is admitted into evidence, I’d vote to convict of bribery, extortion and influence peddling, etc, even if it were a Democrat. Just so we are clear on the exact words Mr. Delay was using to shakedown lobbyists and the way that he did it. Allegedly. Now in a court of law Mr. Delay is entitled to a presumption of innocence, and I suppose he is here too, but every time you ask for a cite and someone gives you one, he starts looking like he should be measuring for drapes for a very small barred window.
Well, he’s not asking me. He’s asking you. There is a reason for that. He wants you to take a firm position. You constantly expand and/or contract definitions from post to post and thread to thread for the purpose of playing Socratic Law Professor. We all know that you can do that and justify it by saying each subject and each question and each thread are unique and require their own context. But he doesn’t want to know you can dance, we all know you can. He wants to know what you really think of the tune. If you don’t really have an opinion and will just dance to anything, then just say so. That is what he is asking. If you just keep dancing, we will all continue to assume, as we have for so long, that you are a dancer. I am reminded of a Louis Prima song.
Of course. But your “personal feeling” is not enough to claim that DeLay made statements that admitted “a pay for play proposition deliberately intended to skirt all the laws and be only technically legal.”
So far, I’ve seen his statement that can be fairly described as “pay for play.” Still waiting to see his statement that acknowledged that this form of pay to play was “deliberately intended to skirt all the laws and be only technically legal.”
There isn’t one.
Please withdraw your claim or substantiate it.
Seems to me you meant to say something like, “By his statements, it was a pay for play proposition, and by my own view of the law, that should have been illegal!”
But what you actually said was that DeLay admitted the scheme was intended to skirt the law and be only technically legal.
Which he did not.
See where I made a helpful link there? That shows where the phrase came from.
I have no idea what it means. I have only used the phrase “technically legal” when quoting you, or others, who used the phrase to begin with. My own position is laid out nicely in the OP of this thread: something is illegal when it violates the law, and legal otherwise. Saying something is only “technically” legal is meaningless.
But you made the claim, so perhpas you have some idiosyncratic defintion in mind, like “Acts that, if committed by a liberal, should be praised as within the bounds of the law, but if committed by a conservative should be condemned as very close to violating the law.”
That definition fits everything you’ve said so far. Feel free to adopt it.
So he’s scum for not being a liberal.
See, what you’re demanding here is liberal behavior: seeing the downtrodden, and passing a new federal law to fix the situation. Only that behavior can prove a good heart.
How about the scenario that he, as a veteran politician, was well aware of successful prosecutions and lawsuits under existing DoL laws and guidelines? How about that because of this, he knew that there was no need for ANY new law – not a need to pass a better law, not a need to pass that ridiculous immigration law, no need for Congress to take ANY ACTION at all.
The fix for the problem was for the DoL to enforce existing law.
Can he think that without being scum? Yes, or no? SImple answer, please.
Oh, so he urged the Department of Labor to address the problem? Put the whole force of his considerable power behind that, did he? And when was this?
A simple cite, please.
And further…this “scenario” that you offer above, is that from his lips, or is this some abstract speculation of your own? Reallizing as I’m sure you do, that DeLay could have offered such a rationalization merely to cover for his scummy behavior.
Such speculations will be put to rest when you reveal to us the forceful and direct efforts he made on behalf of those poor sweater-shoppers of Saipan.
And just in passing, let me remark to a sort of admiration for your effort to make the issue center on whether or not I hold a man scummy for his opinions. That was pretty nifty, counselor.
Here, let me help
http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=619d24435d0c3d0e
Oh, dear.
Now we’re getting somewhere! He went and investigated on his own and discovered: that evil, evil liberals were attempting to smear the good people of the Mariannas! Our hearts swell with pride at this noble effort to defend the good people of the Mariannas from such dreadful slander!
Oh, those happy, happy workers! Who are just thrilled to pieces at their good fortune!
So, there you have it! He personally investigated these dreadful charges and found them to be completely untrue! Stated so publicly, and on the record.
I trust you see the problem, here.
Well, I’ll be darned! Twenty four hours passed, so it becomes obvious. Bricker, you little scamp, you bailed out! Hit the silk, ran away, scarpered! Didn’t even offer a complex, legalistic rationalization, jut brave brave brave Sir Robin!
Son of a gun! Didn’t expect that! Of course, its unseemly and rude to gloat, and if I were a better person, I probably wouldn’t. But I’m not.
Feather in your cap! A white one, sure, but still! A feather!
Is that the rule? 24 hours?
I’ll answer a clear, simple statement of an argument from you.
Posts containing phrases like “Our hearts swell with pride at this noble effort” will be discarded, because I am not smart enough to unravel the flowery prose and discover the actual argument, if any, that the prose hides.
Simple, declarative sentences are all I can handle. “DeLay is scum because ____________.”
Well, you could answer one question, I suppose. That thing you had about how he opposed the legislation because it wouldn’t effectively solve the problem? Did you make that up yourself, as a conjecture, or did he actually say that? Because, see, thing is, he is on record as denying that there was any problem to be resolved.
Too flowery for you?
Thank you. Very clear.
I was just offering alternate theories for the evidence. So no, I don’t have any quotes of DeLay saying that existing laws would fix any problems. But since we started from the argument of, “There were these problems, and DeLay is a scum for killing a law that would have fixed them,” it’s fair to say that perhaps there’s another conclusion.
So that’s what I was doing: saying that perhaps there’s another conclusion.
One that you made up. See, you weren’t entirely clear about that, maybe too much florid language. At any rate, that is disposed of.
What else you got?
Not if all the evidence says otherwise, often strongly. :dubious:
Conclusions are drawn from evidence, as you may recall from the high-school debate team years you remember so fondly. Not despite it.
Try table-pounding, Counselor. It’s more effective.
Yes, I made it up.
But the original accusation was also made up: that DeLay killed the bill because he was paid to do so by the Saipan garment industry.
So we start (presumably) with the default position that any given person is not scum. That to prove scumminess, we need some good reasons.
Right?
So, Delay is said to be scum because he killed a bill that would have changed immigration policy in the NMI. And because that bill was supposedly intended to stop rape and forced abortions amongst the immigrant population.
Right so far?
So the people pushing that interpretation - you - want the reader to conclude two things. One: the bill was going to do at least some good towards the rape and forced abortions problem. And two: that anyone who would kill such a bill must be indifferent to the problems of rape and forced abortion.
I’m falling back into the trap of constructing your argument for you, so let me stop right there. Is that a fair statement of your position? Or did I misstae it in some way? You are invited to correct me in any way I’m off base.
Excellent table-pounding there, truly excellent.
Knew you could do it, counselor, my faith in rationalization is restored!
But arguing with you can be like trying to pick up ball bearings in a pool of motor oil with chopsticks, especially for a poor ol’ peckerwood from Waco without a lot of fancy education, like what you got. So lets be clear.
So you are willing to stipulate that he killed the bill? (Like that “stipulate”? Saw it on *Perry Mason *once…)
“Supposedly”? Got to watch out for you when you start hammering in some maybes. What do you mean “supposedly”? Are you suggesting that the bill in question might not have had any such intention? Lot of evidence offered that such was precisely the intention, you have evidence otherwise? I don’t want to swallow that word without knowing if there’s a hook in it.
Or are you suggesting that the bill would not accomplish that end? That the dumbfucks in the Senate, with maybe a thousand years of law school amongst them, should have consulted with you to get a clearer view of the matter at hand?
Clear up that one little word, “supposedly”, and we can let 'er buck!
Absolutely.
Excellent suggestion.
I said “supposedly,” because the bill said nothing about rape or forced abortions. I agree that the claim was made that the bill would help stop these things, but I believe that claim was window dressing for a bill that was actually intended to create an easier path to residency and citizenship for NMI immigrants.
Since the bill’s actual effect on rape and forced abortion would have been minimal, and since it would have been easy for Congress to actually criminalize or stiffen the penalities for rape and forced abortions, I conclude that the bill really wasn’t about stopping rape or forced abortions.
I’m wondering why you want to boil the whole question down to rape and forced abortions. Is it because there is no specific mention of these crimes, and you’re hoping to use that for an escape hatch? Not that I don’t trust you! Well, ok, maybe a little. Its just that Methodists seldom get Jesuitical training, so I gotta be on my toes.